


for better or for worse, I've yet to know

by artificialromance



Category: Mean Girls - Richmond/Benjamin/Fey
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, this was harder to write than I thought it would be but hopefully it was worth it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 14:58:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17490101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artificialromance/pseuds/artificialromance
Summary: “Only Cady could’ve written that,” he snaps, snatching it back and walking away.Janis feels her face getting hot. She feels the urge the break something, anything, even these dumbass kids around her with all their horrible personalities, wants to punch the wall even if it means her hand will break first, wants to scream until her voice is gone forever.But then she sees Damian at the end of the hall, walking to God knows where, and before she can think, she takes after him. Not storming, stomping, or sprinting. Just walking—trying her best to stay calm.He needs her help.- dt and edited by my very good friend and no. 1 damian stan who wanted damian content





	for better or for worse, I've yet to know

**Author's Note:**

  * For [damianhubbard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/damianhubbard/gifts).



> title is from the song "be calm" by fun. thank u for readinG

Janis couldn’t be more bored if she were actually trying. She hated geometry. Why did they assign so many rules for shapes? _That’s literally killing all the fun of shapes_ , she thought to herself.

So at first, she’s extremely grateful for the chaos that begins to interrupt her internal lament. The roar of footsteps is suddenly heard, and as soon as it accelerates, kids are shouting right outside her classroom. The phone rings, and as soon as her teacher turns to answer it, she grabs her messenger bag and immediately walks out of the room without a backward look, hearing other kids’ chairs being dragged away from their desks so they could follow suit. She makes a left, then a right down the hallway to get to the chorus room.

She sees Damian come out of the room, a little shaken, from the end of the hall. Janis jogs over to him—well, as close as she can get with the mob in between the two of them. He catches her eye, finally, and they have a nonverbal exchange in their eye contact.

_What the fuck is going on?_

_Does it_ look _like I know?_

Damian shakes his head and drops down to pick up some papers, to try and find out. Janis does the same. She picks up the page closest to her. It reads, “Janis Sarkisian is a space d-ke,” along with a picture of her from middle school. She recognizes herself in the black and white copy, but only just barely. She’s so young, she looks different. Smiling wide, fresh-faced. _Naive,_ she thinks to herself. It’s a little spooky seeing it; knowing the whole school is also seeing it, but she shakes the feeling off just in time to hear Damian’s voice shouting her name over the crowd.

“Where’s Cady?”

“She’s in AP Calc this period,” Janis yells back.

“Let’s go get her,” she says. She waits for him to make his way over to her, in the direction of the math classrooms. Janis holds her page up in front of her with a smug face, waiting for Damian to get close enough to read it.

“Original, right?” she says, holding her page out to him. But now that he’s standing right in front of her, she sees that there’s something wrong. Her sarcastic expression melts down into concern as she draws her hand back.

Damian shoves his page in her direction. Janis takes it from him.

It’s his most recent yearbook picture, and under it reads—

“Damian Hubbard is too gay to function,” she says, breathily. Her grip on the paper tightens. and she looks up at him, venom in her expression. “That is _only_ okay when _I_ say it.”

“Only Cady could’ve written that,” he snaps, snatching it back and walking away.

Janis feels her face getting hot. She feels the urge the break something, anything, even these dumbass kids around her with all their horrible personalities, wants to punch the wall even if it means her hand will break first, wants to scream until her voice is gone forever.

But then she sees Damian at the end of the hall, walking to God knows where, and before she can think, she takes after him. Not storming, stomping, or sprinting. Just walking—trying her best to stay calm.

He needs her help.

She follows him all the way out of the building. She calms herself down as best she can amongst the clamor of her classmates screaming and fighting all around her, and the fresh air beyond the front doors is a blessing. She reminds herself to breathe, tells herself to cool off, promises to leave her thirst for vengeance behind those doors and carry with her only whatever Damian would need from her. They aren’t the same. That’s what makes them, well, them. But she would have to try something new this time.

She finally catches up with him only when he’s already at his car, rummaging through his bag with shaky hands to find his keys. She pauses in front of them. There’s no one else outside, and she’s close enough to sense how shallow he’s breathing.

“I’m driving you home.”  

He doesn’t look up at her. “I can drive myself home, Janis, just go back to class. I want to be alone.”

“Bullshit.” She reaches into his bag and takes his keys out. “Please just let me do this,” she says to him. He acquiesces with a sigh, if only because he doesn’t have the strength to fight her.

___

 

“Why is it so silent?” he asks.

“It’s Thursday, it’s your day to choose the music,” she says softly.

“Can you just play something, anything I don’t care,” he rushes.

“Yeah, sure,” she says, turning on the radio. It’s some dumb pop song that they made fun of the other day. The song fills the car but it feels just as silent as before. Damian closes his eyes but doesn’t look any more relaxed. When she slows down to pull into her driveway, he opens them, expecting to see his garage.

“Janis. I just want to go home,” he pleads.

“Can you please just trust me?” she asks him. She doesn’t sound annoyed, just a little tired. He still doesn’t have enough energy to resist. She parks, takes her keys out and open’s Damian’s door on the passenger side.

“I don’t want to,” he says. She reaches out with her hand, and waits there, waits for him to take it and let her pull him out of the car. He reluctantly complies. They go up to Janis’s room. She sits down on her chair and he sits on her bed.

“What do you want?” he says. “I’m fine. I said I was fine, and I’m asking you for _one_ thing. One.”

“I don’t know if you’re doing it to yourself, too, but I know you’re lying to me,” she says. “You know I can tell when you’re upset. And right now, you’re so upset that anyone could,” she says. “Why can’t you just accept that? And, like, work through it?”

“Why can’t _you_ stop telling me what I have to do? I have it together enough to deal with my shit _and_ yours, don’t I? What makes this any different?” The words slip off his tongue like venom. It stings her. Is she a burden?

Janis takes a deep breath, trying not to be obvious about it. Damian is patient. He rarely ever gets snappy, and never at her. She’s thinking of what to say, but he keeps going.

“I just don’t get it. My feelings don’t need you to fix them. You know that I love you. But back off.” He stands up. “If you want to help, you can help by leaving me alone.”

“I call bullshit.” He turns around. The look in his eyes scares her. It means _be careful what you say next_. She notes it, but keeps going. “I’m sorry if I’m making you feel like you need fixing or whatever. But have you considered why you assumed it was?” Damian’s face tightens. “Cause people shouldn’t suffer through things alone, ever. You would know that. So why do you let yourself do it?” He turns away from her. She has to finish, though. “You need it. You want it. So why not let me?”

He turns back around, and his eyes glisten with tears. Janis’s heart drops to her stomach at the sight. She did that. She feels guilty. Tries to remind herself that she’s trying to make Progress.

She hears him sniffle. It still hurts.

“Everyone relies on you. I know I do, too. I know it’s not fair. Christ, Damian, even your own _mother_ does.” She raises her voice, unknowingly. “How long are you gonna let other people walk all over you? When are you going to learn how to say no and fucking ask for help when you need it?” His lip starts to wobble, but she’s started now; too heated to stop. “You deserve better. You can’t let other people drain you of all the energy you have to use toward taking care of yourself. You’ve bottled all this shit up, you let everyone toss you around and you’re gonna explode one day and just be _empty_ afterward.” She doesn’t even realize she’s been pacing around her room the whole time. She turns to look at him and he’s sobbing quietly, struggling to breathe a little.

Her stomach drops at the sight. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t’ve yelled at you. I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she says, making her way over to sit on the bed with ample distance between them. They sit there for a moment as she gives him time to slow his breathing down. It’s torture, kind of, listening to him in so much pain. She reminds herself that he does the same for her every day. Reminds herself that hearing it is way better than the knowledge of him crying alone.

He finally takes a deep breath in and dries his face with the top of his shirt. “Well, goddamn,” he says, half joking, and she can’t help but smile for a second.

“Again, I’m sorry—“

“No, don’t apologize, everything you said was right and we both know that,” he says, sniffling. “I should be thanking you for shoving the truth down my throat like that Ms. Andrew bitch and her castor oil.” Janis lets out a weak laugh at the barely passable British accent he puts on the last two words.

Her voice gets hushed and more serious, though. “I’ve never seen you this upset. Do you…get this way often? And do I just not know?”

“No, no, not really. Not like this. I think it just really got to me for some reason.”

“ _Some_ reason?”

“Yeah, I don’t know, maybe no reason,” he waves her off.

“Okay, we literally just talked about you not confronting your own emotions, we’re not doing this right now. How did you feel? What’s the first thing you thought it? What have you been thinking about since then?” She tries pulling out all the art therapist stops. It’s all she has. She’s trying, really hard. She hopes some of it works.

“Uh…repeat the first question?”

Janis takes another deep breath. “Actually, scrap that. Just—say whatever. Whatever comes to mind.”

“Freudian, hm.” It’s almost a smile she gets out of him. “Well. I kind of just freaked out.”

“Uh huh.”

“And like…I think it’s funny when you and I say it because it actually does feel true. I mean, you know me, obviously, but nobody else does? Like, to them, I _am_ too gay to function, which makes me some character and not really a person, which is seriously _fucked,_ and I know what other people think shouldn’t get to me but where’s the line? I mean, what are the odds that the problem lies with literally everyone else? It just…makes sense that it’s me,” he blurts out. He puts his face in his hands. “I don’t know. I wanna be me, but pretty much everything about me aligns with some bullshit stereotype. I just wish I could change something—one thing, even. It’d make things easier.”

“Dude, those stereotypes are _ideas._ Dumb and inflated ones, perpetuated by equally dumb and inflated people. You’re a person. A real one. Obviously. But you’re the best person I know.” She reaches her hand out to touch his shoulder. She doesn’t consider it, just does it. It feels right. Maybe she _is_ doing something.

He sighs, and she perks up, waiting for what he’ll say next. He sits up, and doesn’t look at her just yet, but lets his hands come down. His face is still flushed, but it’s more pink than red, and his eyes are more tired than panicked. It seems the worst of it all is long gone, and a part of Janis relaxes deep inside. She rubs his back a little.

“Thanks,” he says softly. “You’re not so bad yourself.”

“Do you still wanna go home?” she asks. “I’ll drive you.”

“Is it cool if I stay?"

“Of course it is, dumbass,” she says as she reaches over to her nightstand to grab her TV remote. “Mi casa, et cetera.” He laughs in return.

“Thank you.”

“You already thanked me.”

“Well, then. I take it back.”

“Oh, that won’t be necessary,” she says, leaning against her headboard and gesturing for him to join her. “It’s music to my ears, the second or the seventy-second time.”

“Bold of you to assume there _could_ be a seventy-second time.”  
“I wouldn’t put it past you to surprise us both.” Janis smirks. “Great British Baking Show?”

“What else?” He crosses his ankles and grabs a pillow. “Do you have water by any chance? The drama, it’s dehydrating, you know,” he says, gesturing toward his splotchy face. Janis just opens her drawer and tosses her best friend a bottle of water, met with a mumbled “thanks,” and follows up with a large back of chips.

“Jesus. I’ve got the most perfect butch fairy godmother a gay could ask for. What did I do to deserve you?” He shakes his head.

She just smiles and shrugs. She turns the volume up. “Sixty-nine to go, by the way.”

“Damnit.” She starts laughing at her own joke, and he can’t help but join her. He’s alright. They both are. It’s really, really nice.

**Author's Note:**

> for all my danis and jamian stans out there...hope u feel seen  
> please leave kudos & comment if you liked it!


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